I suppose your kids may go barefoot in the summer but you ought to be able to afford to buy them shoes before school starts. Still, you get a pension.

My dad said that to me once about a career choice I considered as a young man.

He was telling me that it was not a very high paying job but it had a pretty good benefits package which counted for something. If I remember I was thinking of taking a job with the town but decided against it for various reasons.



Back in the day a lot of people opted to take a lesser paying job that had a better benefit package than other jobs had that paid more. The most common benefit that drew people was a retirement pension. 

The three that come to mind first to me are the Old School military, first responders and teachers.

Back in the day a service person could pull a half pay pension after 20 years and top the pension out at 3/4s after 30 years service. There were other benefits, also. They got health care, use of the PX and a few other things.


Teachers could retire at about 65 with a pension of some sort.

I think the police and firemen could retire at about 65, also and drew a pension and other benefits.

First responders and teachers did the best financially but the military generally retired first. I knew of a number of families that persevered the small paychecks and climbed the enlisted ranks and hung in there and retired. As time passed things got better but until recently it was perseverance until retirement. Generally the second career made them better money but the pension along with the retiree benefits made a halfway decent life for them.

It was a little better for first responders and teachers but they didn't usually get a crack at a second career. They plugged away.

All of these people had fairly secure employment that was not too reliant on the outside economy.

These days these people have things an awful lot better. Military pay is pretty decent once a person makes a little rank and the various teacher/police/fire unions have made the jobs a lot better than most people have in the private sector.

Still, many of them, mostly teachers, bellyache about not making enough money.

Cops and firemen get basic vacations but teachers only really work about six months each year. Leave it to them to be the biggest complainers.

It used to be that one could opt for lower wages and a pension or higher wages and no pension, you can't have both.

Nowadays they get both.

Personally if I were to recommend a career for a young person I would suggest the fire department.

Their kids may go barefoot in the summer but they'll be able to afford shoes for them come the beginning of school.










To find out why the blog is pink just cut and paste this: http://piccoloshash.blogspot.com/2009/12/my-feminine-side-blog-stays-pink.html NO ANIMALS WERE HARMED IN THE WRITING OF TODAY'S ESSAY